Albany police union backs officer, blasts city leadership

In a now deleted Facebook post, the Albany Police Union criticized Mayor Kathy Sheehan and an anti-violence organization in the city.

In a now deleted Facebook post, the Albany Police Union criticized Mayor Kathy Sheehan and an anti-violence organization in the city.

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In a now deleted Facebook post, the Albany Police Union criticized Mayor Kathy Sheehan and an anti-violence organization in the city.

In a now deleted Facebook post, the Albany Police Union criticized Mayor Kathy Sheehan and an anti-violence organization in the city.

Albany police union backs officer, blasts city leadership

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ALBANY - In an ongoing battle between the Albany Police Officer’s Union and city leadership over an inflammatory Facebook post by a union official, the union’s president accused leadership of trying to silence the union and placing blame where it doesn’t belong.

“The attempt to silence a union voice by the mayor and police chief is an appalling attempt to shift and deflect responsibility. It violates the Taylor Law, and it divides us,” police union President David Verrelli wrote in a letter posted on their Facebook page Thursday evening. “It will not be condoned.”

Late Sunday night, Greg McGee, the union's vice president, wrote a lengthy post on the union's Facebook page criticizing Mayor Kathy Sheehan and an anti-violence group that responds to shootings. The posting, which was later deleted, went up after a week of violence in the city that left two men killed and 12 other people injured.

Sheehan called for the union to apologize for the comments made in McGee’s post. Acting police Chief Bob Sears issued a blistering statement saying most of McGee’s comments were inaccurate and he feared the negative impact they could have on the department and the community.

"I would contend Greg McGee has done more to negatively impact morale than anyone else," Sears said in his statement. "Greg McGee has damaged all the hard work that members of the department have done over the years with one misguided attempt to make himself feel superior."

McGee's post, which was gone by Monday morning, blamed the violence on "wanna be gangsters and senseless criminals" and said that changes in city policy and staffing shortages were making officers' jobs more difficult.

In the post, McGee said that the department is understaffed and underfunded and that officers are working with equipment that is out of date or doesn't work.

McGee's post also criticized the city's relationship with anti-violence group Albany Cure Violence. The group changed its name to Albany 518 SNUG last December.

"We should be asking what exactly does CURE violence do besides show up to crime scenes and the hospital smelling to high heaven like marijuana," McGee wrote.

Verrelli, who had previously told the Times Union they wouldn’t be issuing an apology and chalked the post up to poor timing, reiterated his support for McGee and called the “public disparagement” of the officer “unwarranted.”

The union “would like to stress that its members fully support Officer McGee and share his concerns for the recent rash of violence that has plagued our city,” Verrelli wrote. “While it is true that we prefer not to speak publicly about labor-related, or workplace grievances, we stand by the facts and feelings expressed by McGee.”

Verrelli blamed the deterioration of the department on Sheehan.

The union has been working without a new contract for several years. An arbitration award earlier this year gave the union a 1 percent raise, retroactive to 2015, that cost the city about $600,000.

Sheehan's chief of staff Brian Shea on Friday declined to provide additional comment on the latest letter exchange and pointed to a previous statement, which emphasized there's a process for labor concerns and the mayor "respects that process."

Verrelli closed by writing that officers will “continue to work in partnership with all stakeholders” to end the violence.

There have been seven homicides in the city so far this year, compared with eight for all of 2017. A series of shootings between July 3 and 8 resulted in 12 injuries and the Saturday morning death of Elijah Cancer, an outreach worker with the anti-violence group McGee criticized. Another man, Rashaun Byrd, was killed in a stabbing early Thursday morning.